Highlighting the obtuse, the slanted and sometimes just plain ignorant writings found in The Gray Lady

Football

1. ESPN is owned by The Walt Disney Company, a corporation that rakes in $52 Billion dollars every year and is only interested in making many more billions of dollars.

2. ESPN makes a habit of promoting the most powerful sports’ interests.

The latest example would be their blatant Duke/Louisville basketball commercials where they make a hero out of Duke’s creepy, cheating Grayson Allen. Does it matter to ESPN that Allen has been repeatedly kicking hitting opponents and is despised by most Americans who value sportsmanship?

No. ESPN wants to make this creep a hero.

3. The number one mantra of every good American should be: “Question Authority.” ESPN will never question authority because they are invested in the status quo.

See a bad call on the football field or on the ball court? ESPN announcers rarely question referees’ or officials’ calls. Questioning authority upsets the status quo. Even though all of America sees what is unfair, ESPN people are blind.

4. ESPN lies by omission.

Before Alabama woefully lost to Clemson in the national championship game, ESPN already crowned Alabama the champ, reporting countless stories and video feeds promoting the invulnerability of the Alabama football team.

Whoops!

Then after Clemson kicked Alabama’s butt in the championship game ESPN practically ignored the results and ignored Clemson’s victory.

Why?

Because ESPN owns the SEC Network where Alabama plays. It is in ESPN’s financial interest to promote Alabama.

Clemson? ESPN won’t make money off Clemson. So they ignore them.

Everyone’s up on fake news. How about “fake non-news?”

5. These “Takeaway” things are just plain silly so make up your own for this last one…

PS: Dan Dakich and Kirk Herbstreit are the 2 exceptions at ESPN: They are both very good at what they do.

Everyone declared Alabama the National Champion of College Football before the game was even played Monday night.

Someone forgot to tell Clemson. They kicked Alabama’s butt 35-31 and left all the football pundits looking like the political geniuses who had Hillary Clinton as president.

It’s always sweet when the nation knows what’s going to happen while the national media does nothing but scream the opposite.

All season long the pundits have piled on about Alabama being the best football team. Yet Americans who watch the game knew that was far from true.

The laughable ESPN has for weeks planted headline-worthy stories crowning Alabama as champions; How many Americans know ESPN runs the SEC Network that ‘Bama represents? It is in ESPN’s financial interest to push ‘Bama as national champion, and that was what they did with all their sloppy journalistic might.

The New York Times had innumerable articles fronting ‘Bama as the leading team of America.

And for all those commenting on sports sites across the web the troubling conclusion is this: The girl deserved it.

Why? Because prior to getting violently punched out by a massive, muscular athlete, the blond girl pushed him, then slapped him on the neck.

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By the thousands men (and some women) are throwing their weight behind the very flimsy logic that this big man was merely defending himself against this girl.

Tellingly, by the thousands these nitwits are buttressing their logic with the fact that women declare they want equality from men. Therefore, a push and a slap from a much smaller female should certainly be seen as a mortal threat and should be countermanded by a punch with the force to kill.

“They want equality? We’ll GIVE them equality! With our fists!” they all say.

Hmmm….think these people have issues?

Think these people can’t properly process intellectual concepts?

Think these people hate all that “women’s lib” stuff? Think these are all the people who hated Hillary Clinton because she was one of “those” women and really wanted to punch her out?

Think this nation is becoming more violent, more intolerant, more reactionary, less able to grasp fundamental values like, for example, Don’t beat your children or women?

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It’s popular to talk about the crumbling infrastructure of America – meaning roads, bridges, etc.

There’s another infrastructure crumbling in America and the sound is deafening – It’s the sound of the crumbling infrastructure of American Society.

We’re wondering who’s going to stand up and become the leader to rebuild that.

New York Times writers Mark Tracy and Pat Borzi went on the record in their Saturday report that framed the University of Minnesota football players plight as not one of an aggressive gang rape sexual assault but rather a “due process” and “fairness” issue for the perpetrators of the crime.

Well, how’s THAT for a creepy spin?

We suppose when the NFL’s Carolina Panthers Greg Hardy beat his girlfriend to a pulp but consequently got his conviction overturned on a technicality, NYTs writers Tracy and Borzi were thrilled about Hardy’s good fortune on HIS due process and the law’s fairness.

Tracy and Borzi thought it was relevant to tout how beautiful it was that student-athletes are able to rally ’round and organize over good causes.

Wait. These players were boycotting in support of their fellow football players who gang raped a coed. And Tracy/Borzi are applauding this?

These NYTs writers pulled out the example of University of Missouri football players who recently boycotted because of racism on campus…But, wait – That SAME Missouri team was found to be cheating academically by having tutors taking tests and just a few years before was involved in their own campus rape scandal where the victim – a female member of the Missouri swim team – later committed suicide.

You’d think NYTs writers would know this kind of stuff.

Then again, when these same writers think this Minnesota boycott was a good idea because these poor football players were denied due process, you can be assured they don’t know squat.

The ludicrous boycott effort by University of Minnesota football players has collapsed. A Friday night meeting with University President Kaler went down with the clueless lunkhead players not getting anything they demanded so forcefully in their original bullying press conference.

Never in the history of collegiate athletics has an entire team stood “proudly” together to support their fellow players right to gang rape other students.

Yes. All these players knew the facts about the gang rape. Because many of them were there. Many of them shared text messages and video clips of the sexual assault. Many of them collaborated in fabricating lies to police in the following investigation.

STILL they gathered together 120 strong and rallied their troops to call attention for all of America and claim they were victims.

STILL they put out a Twitter campaign using the words and image of Martin Luther King, Jr. that proclaimed THEY – those who organized and attempted to cover-up the sexual assault – were victims.

How clueless are these lunkheads? Here are some of their statements from their boycott-ending press release.

That they expect America to “show support for our team and the great character shown by the great majority of our players.”

Ha! All of America will be rooting against them in that Holiday Bowl, that is, if anyone even watches.

“As football players we know that we…are held to higher standards.”

Do they know that? Did they know that when they were fighting to get into line to sexually assault that incapacitated coed? Why the hell should we believe anything they have to say?

“We want to thank our coaching staff and so many others for their support during this difficult time.”

Again, the PLAYERS were going through a difficult time?! What the hell do you think the poor coed was going through when she was at the hospital after the attack? When she had to go through grilling by cold police officers making her repeat over and over the details of that horrendous experience? Then having her name exposed and having to continue living and working at the same university as all those monsters who did that to her? Is there ANY concept of empathy in the heads of these coddled athletes or is it ALWAYS about them? They are truly living in a bubble where nothing outside their protected world exists.

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This did not take place in a vacuum. Many of the player’s fathers, including Ray Buford, who is a Detroit police officer, were very vocal and public advocates for the players’ actions. You would think parents and police officers would know better. You would think a police officer wouldn’t start advocating for players involved in a sexual assault.

Yes, we would think that. Apparently, that policeman doesn’t.

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Yes, it’s true that just last year the Athletic Director at the University of Minnesota was dismissed for sexual harassment. And that’s not the only incident there. There were plenty of them that can be googled.

So these football players are just the latest – and most egregious – in a long line.

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Let’s hope President Kaler has finally found his big ball bat and is keeping it hung close to his desk for future use on all recalcitrant know-nothings.

In the face of these damning facts it is beyond preposterous that these coddled, spoiled boy-athletes believe that they have the moral right to stand before this nation and present themselves as poor, beleaguered victims seeking justice.

What did they do?

There was a young woman, incapacitated by alcohol, thrown on a bed. The “men” of the University of Minnesota football team then kept her imprisoned in a room, organized themselves enough to stand in line to sexually assault her, sometimes 2 at a time, videotaping it at times, including an underage football recruit in this criminal act, texting other football players to get them to participate in this criminal activity, all the time ignoring the woman’s calls to stop.

And the team’s quarterbacks, their leaders, were in on it, too.

If this is a team, then it’s time to get rid of it.

What makes this more outrageous is Minnesota football coach Tracy Claeys says he is “100%” behind his “boys” actions in standing up for their gang raping friends.

Time for University Pres. Kaler to get rid of Claeys.

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Look at Baylor’s football program. For years its players preyed on the female students at that Christian university in Texas where football is king. And the administration covered it up to the point where they threatened the female victims with expulsions for reporting rape by football players because – get this – sexual activity is grounds for dismissal from Baylor. How’s THAT for a novel way to keep victims silent!

Eventually Baylor’s president, AD and coach were let go, though none admitted any wrongdoing. And the rest of the coaching staff that an investigation determined promoted a dangerous environment for women on campus, was allowed to continue on the payroll and is still there today.

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Need more?

How about Oklahoma’s star running back Joe Mixon, a sure 1st round pick in the NFL draft. Just today a video was released showing him knocking out cold a female student in a restaurant. Mixon was barely punished. Why? Because the girl “pushed” him? We suppose that gives a huge, muscular, coiled, angry football player the right to slam his fist into the face of a little blond girl.

Alabama will be playing for the national championship again this year with illustrious Offensive Coordinator Lane Kiffin on the sidelines.

Well Kiffin just took the head coaching job next year at Florida Atlantic Univ. and his first big athlete signing was…the former Florida State quarterback who was dismissed for knocking out a girl in a bar.

See a pattern here?

Does anyone in America laugh anymore while the NFL constantly runs smiley, happy commercials during their games about how “family-friendly” football is? Commercials showing kids and moms and dads playing joyfully together in a blissful world full of NFL-themed products?

Then back to the games where every five minutes the action must be stopped because a player has been knocked cold by another player’s dirty hit. The concussed player carried off the field, unable to continue, while the player who delivered the dirty hit is assured a highlight on that evening’s sports broadcast and just gets to keep on playing.

Need an example?

Look at the hit on the very talented Darren Sproles last week by Deshazor Everett.

Sproles was out, and is out for this weeks game, too. Everett just keeps playing.

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Is there something wrong with football? It didn’t use to be this way.

Is there something wrong with America? It didn’t use to be this way.

There is definitely something wrong with the twisted, feeble, infantile minds and behavior of the University of Minnesota football team when they believe they are the righteous victims when in truth they are promoting a sick mindset that flies in the face of logic and should outrage all Americans.

It was just 2 years ago that a group of student athletes at Northwestern decided to pursue their right to form a labor union and took it to the courts.

My, how times have changed.

Now the self-righteous student athletes of the University of Minnesota football team have threatened to boycott because 10 of their brethren have been suspended by the university president for taking part in a gang rape of a female student/university employee.

The local police refused to prosecute the football players because, well…you know, all the police officers investigating were fans of the football team and were afraid of losing their free season tickets. Oh, and because the woman was drunk, then, well, you know…

Yeah. We know how police think. These days, it’s the same police who go around shooting first and asking questions later.

“To Serve And Protect?” If this is serving and protecting then their boss must be Caligula.

[For anyone interested in football-related rape cases we suggest a serious study of Florida State’s Jameis Winston. From the top down the investigating officers were also employed by or connected to Florida State University. The state’s prosecutor had undue influence and later the judge for the university investigation refused to call testimony from investigating officers. Can you say “whitewash?”

And Winston is now the millionaire star of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Bucs – can you say Happy Ending!]

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Thank goodness University President Eric Kaler is, for now, standing firm on the suspensions because they are based “on facts and (are) reflective of the University’s values.”

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As for the student athlete “leaders” and their coach who supposedly supports their infantile, nay, criminal stance, they have no concept of any values: Whether those of the University of Minnesota which they supposedly represent or the values shared by all decent human beings on this planet.

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The University of Minnesota it must be said has now for years been a pit of desperation for student athletes’ behavior as well as their own AD being dismissed. You need only google for details.

Basketball coach Richard Pitino has a rich history of recruiting reprehensible players who end up being dismissed and arrested for any number of offenses. One of his first recruits brutally beat a girl and was arrested. Just this past season 3 players were suspended for posting sex videos on their Twitter feeds. How’s that for quality athletes?

(It should be said that Richard is the son of Rick Pitino of Louisville whose program was just punished by the NCAA for having an assistant coach pay for prostitutes for players and recruits.Rotten fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.)

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So the University President finally puts his foot down, like a parent who has finally had enough.

Should we be surprised that these spoiled, dense, now criminally corrupt kids think they have the power to bite the hand that feeds them?